Comment The Really Environmental Hazard (Score 1) 775
As long as we are looking 'big picture'.
While critiques of this sort are still a bit controversial, simply because a lot of guessing has to be performed to account for various stages of the vehicles life, they also have a systematic bias which fails to account for an even greater environmental cost generated by the support infrastructure and social changes related to an extensive road network for personal vehicles. The environmental cost of so many roads covering so much of the landscape causing runoff, requiring maintenance, and leeching chemicals, re-radiating heat instead of trapping it in chemical bonds, and creating risks to wildlife is only the beginning. Medium density 'suburban' areas far from work and shopping, with huge, mostly unused lawns are much less possible without ready access to personal transportation and the infrastructure that requires supports and in many ways encourages lifestyles which use a lot of energy and harm the environment. That doesn't even include the cost to human health, psychology, and society, which are all areas where suburbia has received much criticism.